Research on the Influence of China’s Higher Education on life satisfaction from the Perspective of International Comparison

• In Event: Economics and Finance of Education in Developing and Emerging Market Economies: Current Developments and Challenges

Proposal

China aims to lift all rural poor and impoverished counties out of poverty by 2020 and the focus of poverty alleviation work in the next step will transform “from eliminating absolute poverty to the alleviation of relative poverty.” Welfare economists examine relative poverty from the perspective of subjective welfare, and life satisfaction is frequently utilized to measure relative poverty.
When examining the factors that affect life satisfaction, Easterlin observes that economic growth can boost individual’s life satisfaction in the short term, although it can hardly sustain the improvement in the long-run. This so-called "Easterlin Paradox" have led scholars to explore other determinants of life satisfaction. It is generally found that economic factors such as income and social class have a significant impact on life satisfaction in underdeveloped societies. It is also found that in wealthy nations, non-economic factors such as freedom and trust have a more significant effect on the improvement of life satisfaction.

China has witnessed dramatic economic development in the last four decades, stepping out of low-income country group and reaching middle- and high-income level based on its GDP per capita. Given the fact that life satisfaction which measures relative poverty is an important element in China’s poverty alleviation strategy and that factors determining life satisfaction may differ in societies with different level of wealth, it is worthy to evaluate the current status of life satisfaction in China and whether and to what extent it is influenced by economic and non-economic factors. As higher education is proved to increase both individual’s economic and non-economic status, attention is paid to changes in the impact of education on life satisfaction, considering economic and non-economic factors.
This study uses data from the sixth wave (2010-2014) of the World Values Survey and estimates results by a OLS regression model to compare life satisfaction differences among the world, China, and the United States, paying particular attention to the differences in the impact of education, economic factors, and non-economic factors on life satisfaction. Three main results are generated.

First, it is found that education has a positive impact on life satisfaction both globally and in China. When considering economic factors and non-economic factors, comparing the impact of education in China and the United States on life satisfaction, the positive impact of Chinese education on life satisfaction is not significant. In the United States, the world’s largest economy, the higher the level of education, the negative impact on life satisfaction. In addition, the impact of health on life satisfaction is significantly positive and greater compared to other variables. The life satisfaction of male tends to be lower than that of female and married people have higher life satisfaction than unmarried people. The life satisfaction drops first and then rises with age, indicating a U-shaped pattern.

Secondly, economic factors have a significant role in promoting life satisfaction, and income is still a key factor. From the sample analysis of the world, China, and the United States, the estimated income is significantly positive, even higher than the estimated value of education. It shows that raising the income level is still the key channel to improve life satisfaction; in the global and China, social class and life satisfaction are also significantly and positively related. However, in the United States, the impact of social class on life satisfaction is not significant. Considering that in developed countries, social classes are balanced, and class consciousness is weakened.

Finally, Non-economic factors are the key factors affecting life satisfaction, especially freedom. After economic factors and non-economic factors have been added successively, in all countries, the estimates of non-economic indicators exceed education and economic indicators, while the estimates of independent indicators are the largest. It shows that non-economic factors, especially the ability to live independently, have the greatest impact on individual life satisfaction. Examining non-economic factors, freedom and trust have a lower impact on life satisfaction in China compared to the United States, and the influence of freedom is larger than that of trust. This finding has implications for the approaches to boost life satisfaction in China as it moves toward a high-income country.

Author

• Hua Shen, University of Electronic Science & Technology of China